Some Things Never Change
by sockets
Summary: It's never a bight idea to question the mate-selection of those with Seeker heritage, even if Wheeljack is the mate in question.  Mech/Mech oneshot in the Dathana de Gray series.


**Fandom:** Transformers Bayverse  
**Author:** gatekat and femme4jack on LJ  
**Pairing:** Skyfire/Wheeljack  
**Rating:** NC-17 Mech/Mech Sticky  
**Codes:** Slash, Xeno  
**Summary:** It's never a bright idea to question the mate-selection of those with Seeker heritage.  
**Notes:** Written in the Dathanna de Gray fanverse (community .livejournal .com/ tf_socket_fics)  
Written for http:/ community ./tf_rare_pairing/185197 .html - Prompt: Some things never change  
**"text"** translated Cybertronian.  
"text" organic languages  
~text~ bond/cable talk  
::text:: comm chatter

* * *

Some Things Never Change

* * *

Skyfire stepped into the current incarnation of Hang 10, the base's dual species rec room. The latest rebuild had been needed because of his height and the number of mechs now on the island. A normal day, a normal run for energon for himself as Wheeljack.

Not so normal looks from several mechs already there.

**"Um, hello,"** Skyfire greeted them a bit uneasily.

Ratchet raised his hand, with what was likely his third or forth cube of high grade, in greeting. **"Skyfire, we were just talking about you,"** he said in a far too friendly voice. Friendly Ratchet was dangerous. Most mechs preferred him wielding a wrench and fragged off. It was more predictable.

**"Yes,"** Ironhide grumbled, nursing his own cube. **"Have a seat, mech. We don't get enough chances to chat."**

**"Thank you but Wheeljack's really expecting me back in a few kliks with our energon,"** Skyfire shifted uneasily and slid towards the main dispenser.

**"And Wheeljack is not capable of getting his own energon? Oh yes, that's right. He forgets, and if you don't get it for him, his little organics have to figure out a way to do it themselves."** Ironhide chuckled.

**"Honestly, Skyfire, I don't know how you put up with it. I like Wheeljack as much as any mech, and am grateful for everything he has done despite the sheer number of supplies he has cost me repairing him over the vorns, but to be anything more than a casual lover? It would drive me insane. It's enough to make me want to check your processors."** Ratchet grumbled, with a look in his optics that made Skyfire think the medic was actually serious.

**"You already did, after my first, and after I settled in with Skytree,"** Skyfire pointed out warily and a little wearily. **"There is nothing wrong with my choices or how I reach them."**

**"You are just such a sane mech, Skyfire,"** Ratchet went on as if the shuttle hadn't spoken, **"and in this brave new world of ancient reproduction we've entered, you would be the carrier. Your most basic coding should lead you to seek a stable mate who can educate and care for a sparkling and keep a household organized. All the things Wheeljack is not, and he certainly isn't carrier material."**

**"We are more than our base coding,"** Skyfire pointed out calmly even as his wings twitched in a way that made Silverbolt, across the room, locate each of his brothers and gather them close to him and far from the conversation. **"You know better than most that I've always been drawn to the excitable type. Reproduction is not the only grounds for what one desires in a long-term partner. Balance and common interests factor in as well."**

**"If coding was all the controlled our choice in mates, I would not be with a similar sized and armored warrior,"** Ironhide added, taking Skyfire's part suddenly.

**"Yes, but you are a glitched-cannon-wielding-nursery-mech. Skyfire is a steady, respectable, sane Aerial,"** Ratchet went on, oblivious of the dangerous glare Ironhide shot his direction and pretending to ignore the snickers from various quarters listening in.

**"Yes, steady,"** Skyfire murmured, his wings dipping slightly, a move that had the Aerialbots quickly slinking out of the building. **"Steady enough to need someone who isn't to balance me. Seeker enough to not be bound by your rules. Combat capable shuttles carry a heavy Seeker heritage you know,"** he rumbled his engines slightly as his wings swept up, thousands of vorns worth insults across three mates finally reaching the point where he reacted to them. **"Is Wheeljack capable of keeping a household organized? No. But he's a _fine_ teacher and has stronger caretaker protocols than Ironhide,"** his voice rose gradually until it was a growled hiss. **"_If_ we bond, _if_ we have sparklings,"** his broad white hand landed on the table as he leaned into Ratchet's face in a very blunt reminder that he was more than twice Prime's height with a wingspan to match as the entire table was shadowed by his bulk. **"They will be well protected and cared for."**

**"Oh, calm yourself, Skyfire. I never said you wouldn't care well for sparklings."** Ratchet responded without a lick of fear. **"I'm just trying to figure this whole reproductive coding out. For every pair that follows the script, there is another that completely violates it."**

The shuttle settled his wings and straitened, looking a bit sheepish for his outburst that had nearly every mech and organic in the room looking at him in various levels of shock.

**"Our most basic function is to change and adapt,"** Skyfire flicked his wings in a shrug as he tried to settle himself. **"Given how many of us do so consciously, that is not a surprise. We are a species that has incorporated gender into our self-references in our own language despite a fundamental absence of it in our makeup. Was there something specific you do not understand about my choice of Wheeljack?"**

"Ratchet, what are you interrogating Skyfire about? You aren't obsessing on the carrier/caretaker thing again, are you?" A female organic voice suddenly interrupted from the floor by Skyfire's feet.

The shuttle looked down at Mikaela Banes, Ratchet's organic socket and medbay assistant, who gave him a wide smile.

"Don't mind him, Skyfire," Mikaela said in her sweetest voice. "He is baby obsessed and is determined to see everyone on base paired appropriately to create the maximum number of sparklings safely," _and doesn't want Wheeljack to accidentally blow them up,_ she added mentally.

"So who is he pairing with?" Skyfire asked her with a rumble of amusement. "Sparkling Ratchets would be cute and deadly."

"Oh, would they ever," Mikaela laughed.

"Use the logic Primus gave you, mech," Ratchet growled in response, glazing daggers at his socket as he took another drink. "_I'm_ the one responsible for keeping everyone alive while they carry. I can't carry a sparkling, nor can I bond with a mech who would. My job, at the moment, is the tiny task of ensuring our species' very survival."

"In other words, he said 'no' to Wheeljack one too many times and is jealous," Ironhide added helpfully, drawing a soft chuckle from Skyfire and a boisterous laugh from Mikaela, who happily accepted the shuttle's offered hand to the table top.

"Maybe, but the betting pool says it's someone else he didn't move fast enough on," Smokescreen teased from the next table over.

Mikaela stiffened slightly, glancing surreptitiously at Ironhide.

Skyfire took note and gave the medic a small smile. "How's Shimmerfire been behaving?"

"Like a carrying Seeker," Ratchet replied, visibly relieved with the subject change as he put his hand out on the table for Mikaela to climb on. "Her temper is nasty, her patience in thin, and her drive to overload is higher than ever. If you _do_ eventually decide to carry, it will be frightfully interesting to see just how much Seeker is in you."

"Perhaps the first test will be if I can spark without bonding first," he gave the medic a wink and turned to get the energon he'd originally come for. "Some Aerials can, after all."

* * *

Wheeljack peered intently at the nanites he had been painstakingly building and then coding over the past...however long it had been. He'd taken his internal chronometer offline when it is pinged him one too many times about his need for energon or recharge. He was _so_ close, just a few more coding modifications and he'd be ready for a trial - a trial that could mean that Venus would be ready a full vorn earlier than thought for the thousands of organic species in stasis on the Ark-class ship in synchronous orbit behind earth's moon.

**"Cybertron to Jack,"** a voice called for his attention. **"Please come in."**

Wheeljack held up a hand as he continued to study the subatomic sized nanites through a specialized modification to his optics. **"One more klik, I'm almost there,"** he announced in a dangerously gleeful tone.

**"In five I pull you away,"** Skyfire warned, bemused.

Wheeljack made some noncommittal sound and continued to work, actually talking with the nanites that he was coding.

**"All right kiddos, you've got it? If you can change the DNA and the quantum resonance of a biological entity, you can do it to a planet. I believe in you,"** he cheered them on, as though they were pets he had entered into a show.

The inventor sat up, his finials flashing as he turned to his lover. **"Ready to test them?"** he asked with the excitement of a sparkling.

**"First, drink,"** Skyfire insisted as he knelt and pushed the cube into Wheeljack's hand. **"Then you remind me why we're lovers,"** he rumbled, still heated from the thoughts the earlier conversation had brought up. **"_Then_ we can test them."**

Wheeljack looked as though he were about to object, but heard the tone of his lover's voice and thought better of it. There were one or two things that were more important than science, after all. Yes, one thing in particular, which always inspired such delicious ideas in him.

He followed Skyfire out of their shared lab into their private quarters, sitting on the extra large berth. He retracted his mask to drink the cube in a single swallow, only now noticing how close his own systems were to going offline.

Skyfire reached and cupped Wheeljack's face in a large hand, drawing the much smaller mech into his lap and for a kiss, taking the cube with his other and setting it aside. **"Now,"** he crooned as he lay back and drew his lover down on top of him, **"Tell me about this project while you distract me from the fact we haven't shared my berth in two decaorn."**

Wheeljack gasped at the heat of the kiss, but was far too excited about his project to move on to other things until he had shared it, and it was all too clear that Skyfire knew he wouldn't have his lover's complete attention until he was in on the secret.

**"Well, you know how Miles had that Star Trek movie marathon awhile back, and you know how I can't resist the active imagination of these organics when it comes to science? In the second movie, there was an invention called the Genesis Device that could transform a dead planet to a life-filled one in a matter of hours. While obviously that is a bunch of slag even if it brought Spock back to life in a convenient plot twist, it got me pondering our terraforming project on Venus. I wondered if I could create nanites to that could rebuild organic molecules out of inert ones. After all, there is plenty of carbon on the planet. I believe that with a combination of quantum energy changes and molecular transformation, we literally could create simple organic life out of inert materials. We could even convert the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into oxygen. Really, there is no limit to what we can program them to do. The only limits are those we've placed on ourselves by lack of lateral thinking. So I'm trying to create and code Genesis nanites. Let there be life!"** Wheeljack announced with a slightly insane chuckle.

Skyfire drew him in for a long, intimate kiss, playing their glossa together and reveling in being with this being that made him feel _alive_ like few others. He ran his hands down Wheeljack's back, clawtips sneaking into seams where he could.

**"What about making new life with me?"** He asked throatily, paying only passing attention to the fact that not a joor earlier he hadn't considered this at all. **"One of our kind to grow up with Venus."**

Wheeljack froze, his optics cycling several times.

**"You ... want to create a sparkling? With ... me?"** His voice squeaking on the final word like an human boy going through puberty.

**"Yes,"** Skyfire cocked his head and flicked the ailerons on his wide wings. **"Why wouldn't I want to?"**

**"Well...because I'm _me_. You know, the insane, organic-loving inventor who can't even remember to recharge or take energon when I need it and am as well known for blowing myself and my lab up as I am for inventing sockets, spikes and valves. I'm...you deserve someone sane and attentive and ... well ... safe to create life with, Skyfire."** Wheeljack objected, his finials beginning to flash the colors of distress.

Skyfire claimed a kiss until those finials settled into the deep indigo of desire before he spoke. **"You are brilliant, caring, the fire in my life and your spark is strong."** He caressed his lover's face with fingers nearly as large as Wheeljack's were relative to a human's. **"I've known your spark,"** he rumbled. **"You'll be as attentive to your sparkling as you are to your sockets."**

Wheeljack put his own hands up to his lover's facial components and touched them almost reverently. **"Yes,"** he answered quietly, for once in his long existence at a loss for words.

**"Then I will ask Ratchet for his special 'pre-natal' energon brew tonight,"** he claimed another kiss and slid his hands down Wheeljack's back. **"We have much to learn about how much Seeker is in me."**

Wheeljack sank into the touch, nibbling at the components of the Aerial's neck. He suddenly paused and chuckled. **"This base is going to be in a total panic when they contemplate little flying Jacks with Seeker coding. I can't wait to observe the reaction."**

Skyfire laughed deeply and kissed him solidly. **"Especially after Shimmerfire's clutch is born and they find out what newborn Seekerlings are really like,"** his entire frame trembled with mirth. **"Ratchet is going to regret grilling me earlier."**

**"You got grilled by Ratchet? Whatever for? Not that he needs an excuse, mind you."** Wheeljack's optics and finials flashed with mischief as his thin fingers began working their way under the armor plating at Skyfire's shoulders to stroke the wiring, cables and protoform underneath.

**"Mmm,"** he arched into the touch, ailerons and fingers twitching. **"He was having a fit about 'sane stable me' falling for 'insane, unstable you' since carrier protocols should have me looking for a caretaker and provider."**

**"Well, he only told you exactly what I tried to,"** Wheeljack positioned himself so he could caress his lover's sensor-rich wings. They were so intricate, so receptive, it was as though they were meant to be played as an instrument.

**"Yes, but he got me thinking about sparklings,"** he gasped out, his chassis curling slightly to press his wings more fully into that touch. **"Ohhh ... don't stop!"**

**"Turn over,"** Wheeljack suggested with a grin, intending to give his towering lover's ailerons the proper treatment.

Skyfire rumbled and half sat up to roll over, careful of both his wide wings and his lover before settling down and sliding his wings down to put them in closer reach. **"All yours."**

**"Do you know what Ratchet said to me a couple decaorns ago?"** Wheeljack began conversationally as his lithe engineer's fingers began stroking a pattern that matched Skyfire's sensor net exactly, sending EM pulses to each node, even those deep underneath the surface. It was as though he had his lover's entire schematics memorized, which he, in fact, did.

**"What?"** Skyfire barely managed anything more that a chest-deep moan, his entire chassis trembling, his wings quivering violently under that exacting touch.

Wheeljack was silent for a moment, continuing his thorough exploration. Leaning down, he vented directly on a particularly good spot designed to detect the most minute changes in air currents.

**"He told me that all of the sockets I claim are just an unconscious advertisement that I want to be a co-creator to someone who can carry multiple sparklings at the same time,"** he explained casually before running his glossa over that same sensor.

**"Ahhh!"** Skyfire's entire frame arched and rippled, his spark pulsed faster. **"M-maybe ... one ... ohhhh ... listened."**

**"Maybe he did,"** Wheeljack chuckled, letting his field play over his lover's wings before his glossa continued to devastate Skyfire's most highly tuned nodes. **"Overload for me, Sky. I want to see the energy dance on your wings, and then I want you to spike me, hard."**

Only a deep, rumbling moan answered, Skyfire's body trembling. Tiny licks of electricity danced up to zap the fingers that brought such pleasure as the shuttle stopped trying to hold back. Clawed fingers dug into the floor, leaving deep scratches to join those left before.

**"So fascinating,"** Wheeljack commented as though he were observing an experiment. **"The majority of your overload is being redirected toward your spark. You really _are_ in the mood to carry. We need to remember to hook up to one of my sockets when we do this, to make you even stronger."** The engineer was clearly committed to this new adventure of ancient, Allspark-free reproduction, and would fixate on it the same way he fixated on whatever he was creating.

Skyfire gasped for cool air, his systems running hot and not even close to sated.

**"Or several,"** he rumbled, twisting to drag his lover under him and pin him there. A hard, desperately hungry kiss stilled them both for a moment. **"I don't even know if I can spark without a bond,"** he added just a bit hesitantly. **"Full Seekers don't need one, but many Aerials do. I never expected to be the carrier before."**

**"Do you _wish_ to bond?"** Wheeljack asked with uncertainty, running his hands along cabling of his lover's shoulders.

**"If I can carry without risking you, it's better."** Skyfire said gently with a soft kiss. **"You don't need the trauma of a broken bond on top of all that happened to make sockets a reality."**

Wheeljack met this statement with a fiercely loving look. **"I'm not afraid of pain, Skyfire, not after losing as many sockets as I have. It is part of love. If it does not work without a bond, we can talk of it more."** Before Skyfire could respond, his smaller lover had pulled him into a much fiercer kiss, glossa tangling as the inventor slid back his interface panel to release the most popular of all of his inventions, even more popular than the sockets they had been created for, much to his dismay.

Skyfire responded by sliding his own panel open. His spike slid out of its housing, default size just as Wheeljack liked it, to rub against the inventor's own as the kiss continued.

**"Thank you,"** Skyfire whispered as their mouths separated briefly. He closed his mouth against Wheeljack's once more, pressing his glossa inside with the same slow slide as his spike pressed into the slick valve. His spark burned, carrier protocols roaring to full activation as energy coursed through his systems.

Wheeljack's finials settled into the deepest indigo as he stared into Skyfire's optics, venting heavily and groaning as his lover's thick spike slid into him with agonizing leisure. He felt his own never-used protocols kicking in as well, channeling energy to his spark. **"I love you,"** he gasped, his chestplates unlocking without a conscious command.

With a shudder Skyfire held back, allowing instinct to govern his actions. The slow slide of his spike, until he hilted inside his lover's body, built the charge as did slowly pulling it out. He knew he shouldn't try to spark just yet, and could only hope that the knowledge was enough to keep it from happening. One thing he remembered clearly from his time with Skywarp: intent was everything. If all parties didn't want it, it didn't happen.

So he arched his back and kissed the exposed chamber under him, mouthing it lightly and sliding his glossa around the edge of the iris.

**"Primus, Sky!"** Wheeljack almost came undone as he shuddered with intense pleasure radiating from his chamber, deliberately holding back his growing charge that was beginning to make his frame crackle with blue light. His valve pulled at the spike, as if to draw his lover deep within himself. His own hands were delving deep underneath the shuttle's armor to slide along the protoform underneath.

**"Let go,"** Skyfire encouraged, the words vibrating against the spark chamber under his lip components as he continued the torturously slow slide of his spike in and out of his lover's body. **"Show me your pleasure. We can't spark yet."**

Wheeljack did just that, forcing his creator protocols to disengage and giving in to the sensation of his lover taking care of him in the most exquisite fashion possible. The spike inside him was so thick that his sensors lit with pleasure approaching pain. Every prolonged thrust brought him closer to plummeting over the precipice they were both eagerly anticipating.

**"So lovely when you're near overload,"** Skyfire crooned, lavishing his lover's spark chamber with as much attention as he could. **"So very lovely."**

His lover's caressing words, vibrating the chamber of his spark, plunged Wheeljack over the edge where he was as effusive in his keens of ecstasy as he was in his excitement to invent and create. **"Need you,"** he cried between keens, pulling his lover up so he could spiral open his chamber, filling the lab with a radiant golden glow. It was only a moment before Skyfire's softer blue-purple glow joined it and quickly the coronas latched onto each other from welcome familiarity.

Wheeljack arched upward, the outer edges of their cores welcoming one another as excitement, love, and the desire to create washed over both lovers eliciting a sharp keen of pleasure from the inventor and a slightly deeper one from the shuttle. Their cores reached out to draw the other closer as they were pressed together, opening up memories.

The ecstasy of a mating flight, discussions of sparklings with his first lover, the adoration of every organic life that had entered his, but especially the feather-crested feline that was the very first of all sockets, the grief of a new spark reabsorbed not two orns after creation, the hope for a next attempt that never came.

As they became one, hope flowed through their systems like liquid gold. After countless vorns of war, of watching their species heading toward extinction along with so many organic worlds, there was true reason to hope, and that alone was almost enough to create a new spark.

~Or many,~ one of them whispered, memories of trines born already bonded and perfectly balanced, knowledge that he was large enough to carry more than that at a time, a trickle of desire for a clutch larger than Shimmerfire to show off that Aerials were strong too.

Skyfire cried out, the rapture, the _hope_, was too much and he pulled away, pulling at his spark to separate them before he lost his will not to spark yet.

**"That was extraordinary,"** Wheeljack whispered once his vocalizer rebooted.

**"Very,"** Skyfire agreed weakly before claiming a kiss. **"Twenty orns will be a difficult wait to try."**

**"I could always get involved in a project that you aren't able to distract me from,"** Wheeljack teased, kissing him in return and running a hand lightly along the side of his lover's large helm.

**"Oh?"** an optic ridge lifted even as Skyfire pressed into the contact. **"Just how would you manage that if I'm feeling randy?"**

**"I will say, you are the very best and distracting me yet,"** Wheeljack chuckled, giving Skyfire a lingering kiss the ended when the door slid open.

**"Excuse me for disturbing you,"** Prowl said with an almost smile, **"but I must ask if either of you have any idea why there is suddenly algae growing on most every non-biological surface on base, including the armor of several mechs?"**

Wheeljack's face broke into an ecstatic grin **"Some of the nanites must have escaped containment! They are self replicating just as I had hoped. Let there be life! Amazing!"**

**"Yes, that is good, except for the part about escaping containment,"** Prowl attempted to bring things back to focus. **"You did remember to engineer an off switch for them this time, correct?"**

Wheeljack waved off the concern. **"These ones will automatically turn off in an orn. Meanwhile, we will get to see the beginnings of what terraforming will look like on Venus! Oh, this is _wonderful_, Skyfire."** Wheeljack grabbed his lover's face and brought him in for an exuberant kiss before rolling out from underneath him. **"Come on! Lets go take a look. I need to get some samples. I wonder if any of the growth will progress past the single-celled stage?"**

**"We will soon find out,"** the shuttle smiled down at his lover as they both stood and headed out. He did give Prowl an apologetic look as they passed him, however.

**"How much growth is likely within that orn?"** Prowl fell in step with Wheeljack.

**"I have no idea. Won't it be fun to find out?"** Wheeljack was practically bouncing.

Prowl simply vented and sent out a series of notices and warnings to most on base before following with a scowl plastered on his features.


End file.
